The young Marine dubbed the “Marlboro Man” after his front-page appearance in The Post has become a celebrity poster boy for the U.S. effort in Fallujah, a heartthrob to women everywhere and a hero in his hometown.

But there’s one drawback to being the Marlboro Man – everyone keeps bumming your smokes.

“If you want to write something,” Marine Lance Cpl. James Miller, 20, told a reporter this week, “tell Marlboro I’m down to four packs and I’m here in Fallujah till who knows when. Maybe they can send some. And they can bring down the price a bit.”

Marlboro declined comment.

Miller’s rugged and muddied portrait – snapped after 12 hours of bloody combat with guerrillas – became a powerful symbol for the American forces’ gritty effort to retake Fallujah.

Marine brass were thrilled with the poignancy of the shot and Lt. Gen. John Sattler visited Miller’s company to applaud them for the feature. News agencies that ran the shot were besieged with phone calls and e-mails asking for a way to contact the young man.

And back home, in his Appalachian hometown of Jonancy, Ky., his mother reveled at seeing his picture on television just to know her oldest of three sons was OK.

“It’s just like God saying, ‘I’m letting you know he’s all right,’ ” his mother, Maxie Weber, a nurse, told the Appalachian News-Express.

She’s been on “pins and needles” since he was sent to Iraq in June, and she was given the fright of her life four weeks ago when he was slightly wounded by a piece of shrapnel from a car bomb. One of his comrades from Charlie Company was killed, and the closest soldier to him was seriously wounded.

Jonancy held a candlelight vigil last night at Shelby Valley HS to pray for a safe return.

But Miller is trying to take his newfound stardom in stride.

“I don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” he said. “I was just smoking a cigarette and someone takes my picture and it all blows up.”

In the calmer moments of war, the three-pack-a-day smoker can settle in on more benign concerns of running out of cigarettes.

“When I came to Fallujah, I had two cartons and three packs,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” With Post Wire Services